Monthly Archives: April 2013

Tonight was the Freedom Club’s annual dinner. It was, as always, a delightful event. The Freedom Club is the principal organization of conservative donors in Minnesota. (Actually, it is probably the only organization of conservative donors in Minnesota.) For nearly 20 years, it has been almost the only counterbalance to the teachers’ unions, rich out of state liberals, and others who support the Democrats. For most of its history the »

At his press conference today, President Obama took the same position on Syria that his spokesmen have previewed. It’s a lawyerly, two-part position. First, we don’t know for sure that the Assad regime has used chemical weapons. Second, even if it has, this is just one factor in our analysis of what to do (or not do). The first part may be true, and after Iraq we should have less »

Politico suggests that our friend Rep. Tom Cotton is “the last, best Hope for GOP hawks.” The idea is that, with even conservatives moving away from an interventionist mindset, Tom now carries the banner for those like Bill Kristol who hold out for the post-9/11 Republican consensus on foreign and national security policy. There is some truth to this narrative. But the story’s author, Alex Burns, falls into the Washington »

My friend Bill Otis, who sometimes contributes to Power Line, is scheduled to appear on Piers Morgan’s show on CNN tonight some time after 9:00 p.m. Eastern Time. Bill will discuss Arsenal’s amazing unbeaten streak since Morgan trashed the team on television. NOT — Bill actually will debate Alan Dershowitz about whether The Boston Bomber should face the possibility of the death penalty. Bill’s article about the subject in Forbes »

In case you have been vacationing in Outer Mongolia, let me be the first to inform you that NBA player Jason Collins has disclosed his sexual orientation — gay. I have no interest in the sexual orientation of Collins or anyone else, and I doubt you do either. At the same time, it is easy to imagine that Collins has had a rough time of it in “the closet”. So »

It’s not enough that Washington Republicans seem bent on signing onto any immigration deal that supposedly helps them with their “image” problem, but why do so many of them want to bash one of Obama’s better ideas in his budget: privatizing the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA)? Let’s see: Barry Goldwater was for this before it was cool, and Ronald Reagan broached the idea in 1981, and was beaten back. Now »

Liberals will never tire of calling conservatives racist, because it’s always a show-stopper, a way of cutting off further debate on any issue where a liberal is likely to lose. So don’t expect it to go away any time soon. (Though why Republicans aren’t better at “punching back twice as hard,” e.g., by pointing out the permanent racist legacy of the Democratic Party, noting the vote tally for the 1964 »

Victor Davis Hanson borrows the concept of the Borg from Star Trek (“the fictional alien race that appears as recurring antagonists in various incarnations”) to capture the Obama administration’s groupthink reformulating the war on terror. The Obama Borg, as Hanson dubs it, dissociate Islam from terrorism. The denial has reached absurd proportions with results that would be laughable if they weren’t so serious and pathetic. We are all familiar with »

Former federal prosecutor Bill Otis graciously quotes my latest reflections on the Mirandizing of the Boston Marathon terrorist and adds some thoughts of his own. Bill says that, if the Justice Department was concerned that 16 hours of interrogating Tsarnaev without a Miranda warning was pushing the outer limits of the Quarles exception for emergency questioning, the concern was undertandable: I am not aware of a case in which any »

Fox News has two related stories regarding State Department and CIA employees who reportedly have information they wish to offer about the Obama administration’s conduct in relation to the Benghazi attack. According to a lawyer for one of these whistleblowers, the information pertains to (1) the State Department’s failure, prior to the attack, to provide proper security despite warnings that should have led to a security beef-up (2) the government’s »

I got a carry permit a couple of months ago, but my guns have been full-sized–an Armalite AR-24 9 mm. pistol, and a SIG Sauer Mosquito .22–and not really suitable for carrying. So I ordered a carry piece through a friend who owns a gun shop outside the Twin Cities. It arrived today, having rolled off the factory line on April 18. So I left work a few minutes early »

Country singer George Jones died this past Friday at the age of 81. I think the consensus is that Jones was the best country singer of the era. You can certainly hear his influence in just about every younger country artist worth listening to. Jon Pareles gives Jones his due in the New York Times obit “His life was a country song.” Pareles renders a fine appreciation of Jones’s life »

As we noted here, Numbers USA has estimated that if the Gang of Eight’s immigration proposal becomes law, at least 33 million immigrants will enter the United States, or be legalized here, over the next ten years. The overwhelming majority will be Mexicans, and most will enter the country as a result of our irrational policy of chain immigration, which will be unlimited as to the relatives of those covered »

It’s an axiom of American cosmopolitanism that Europe is far advanced over the United States in terms of social democracy, tolerance, openness, and so forth, and at the pinnacle of European sophistication stands France. The French have it over us on everything from existential filmmaking, wine and cheese, anti-semitism, and embrace of gay . . . —wait, what’s this? A major populist uprising against gay marriage in France, with hundreds »

The Washington Post reports that the defense cuts mandated by the sequester are proving to be a “paradox” for the left. Keith Ellison, the ultra-leftist congressman from Minnesota, says he “feels torn” by the cuts because they further his goal of reducing the money available to the military, but contradict his goal of maximizing government spending. When in doubt, the left these days will tend to opt for government spending, »

Mike Rogers, Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, is as perplexed as I am about the circumstances associated with the Mirandization of the surviving Tsarnaev terrorist. Accordingly, he has written a letter to Eric Holder posing questions for the Attorney General. Concerned that the interrogation of Tsarnaev may have been “conducted in a manner that prematurely cut off a lawful, ongoing FBI interview to collect public safety information,” Rogers tells »

How did I miss these two 30-second videos last week while compiling the Week in Pictures? The first is a recording, via YouTube, of NPR’s Dina Temple-Raston speculating that the Boston bombing was likely the result of right-wing extremists because Hitler’s birthday was about to be observed. Even though this video has only sound but no images, you have to hear it, not to believe it–much better than reading the »